this post was submitted on 28 Apr 2025
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I live in a country where our ISPs are required by law to keep a record of our internet metadata. When VPNs have been subpoenaed in the past ths answer has often been "we don't keep that data".
So in that case we're looking at a likelihood of 1 vs less than 1. So you're wrong there.
Plus, I would love to hear your source on these probabilities you proclaim. Can you share how you know this?
You said "far more likely", so one assumes you have the numbers.
There are definitely some VPN providers to worry about.
VPNs are a security tool but they don't protect people as much as they think. They hide DNS traffic your ISP would have received, so that your ISP can't tell everyone which cuckold or affair site you access (except you probably forgot to turn the VPN on one time or another so...)
~~Your ISP can still see IP addresses you connect to, they forward all your traffic~~ [I need to proof read before I press post - this is just misinformation]. Good opsec is a nightmare. Ad blocking does more for less cost than getting a VPN will ever do (except for certain human rights circumstances but I'd wager they're actually going to be careful).
My personal tip is use DNS over HTTPS/TLS where possible, and don't use Cloudflare or Google. Add an ad blocker and it's far easier to setup and way more cost effective than VPN.
Using a VPN will prevent your ISP from selling your IP logs to data brokers. It also obfuscates your IP to websites you visit to make their fingerprinting less precise. All your ISP can see is that you're connecting to/from a VPN server through an encrypted tunnel and maybe some metadata like amount of data transferred.
Hard to compare value to free stuff like encrypted DNS and an ad blocker but a VPN definitely has protections you wouldn't get otherwise.
Yep sorry, I said a dumb thing.
My point is probably more to do with the marketing around VPNs than anything else. As you very nicely put, there are a thousand ways to track someone without having their IP address. VPNs don't cover all bases but the marketing teams talk about them like they do.
Amazon can still sell your info to data brokers without having your home ip address: they have your email, name, delivery address and search history as a start.
You said "far more likely" and it turns out you don't have the numbers and you were just making that up? Wow, I never could've predicted that.
I am not OP, I just decided to reply.